United States History Student Edition

The speeches of Frederick Douglass often excited strong emotions, as this one did at an 1860 abolitionist meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. Drawing Conclusions Why do you think this abolitionist meeting in a Northern city became disorderly?

Because he fled, Douglass faced the danger of capture and a return to slavery. Still, he joined the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. He traveled widely to speak at abolitionist meetings. He even appeared at events in London and the West Indies. Douglass was a powerful speaker who often moved listeners to tears. He also edited the antislavery newspaper The North Star . Douglass might have remained overseas, but he made his home in the United States because he believed abolitionists must fight slavery at its source. He insisted that African Americans receive not just freedom but full equality with whites. In 1847, friends helped Douglass buy his freedom from the slaveholder from whom he had fled in Maryland. Maria Stewart, a free African American from Boston, was an early, strong voice for abolitionism. In a famous essay published in 1831 and in several lectures, she called for African

Americans to resist slavery and seek learning and political rights. She is considered a strong influence on other African American abolitionists. Sojourner Truth, who was born Isabella Baumfree, was another African American who became a powerful abolitionist voice. After a childhood and youth filled with hardship, she escaped her enslavement in 1826. Then, she formally gained her freedom in 1827 when New York banned slavery. Baumfree later settled in New York City with her two youngest children. In 1843, Baumfree chose a new name. As she explained: “The Lord [named] me Sojourner . . . Truth, because I was to declare the truth to the people.” Sojourner Truth understood that the crusade to end slavery and the struggle for women’s rights were connected. She spoke powerfully about the plight of women in a famous speech delivered at a women’s rights conference

PHOTO: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-112670]; TEXT: (1)Stowe, Harriet Beecher. “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl.” In Carleton Mabee and Susan Mabee Newhouse. Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend. New York and London: New York University Press, 1993; (2)Truth, Sojourner. December 1851. Ain’t I A Woman? Delivered at Women’s Convention, Akron, Ohio. http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp.

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